We've all experienced the feeling of occupation that makes the passage of an hour, or a longer period of time, a mere nothing. You get lost. You’re swept along oblivious with each tick of the clock. Something traps your focus until you’re left asking where the day went. There can…
Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is a collection of private notes the Roman Emperor wrote to himself for his own guidance and self-improvement. Written almost two thousand years ago, it remains one of the key texts on Stoic philosophy. Meditations consists of twelve books, covering different periods of Marcus's life. Book one…
Brittany Polat is an author of two books, a blogger at Living in Agreement, and a contributor to the Modern Stoicism site. She has a keen interest in the application of the Stoic principles in modern life, and also works on the Stoicare project. It was great to be able…
I don’t often confirm a "good day" unless a number of good things have happened. There needs to be a clear and heavy imbalance in favour of things going right, categorical and undisputed, before any contentment can ensue. I woke up early, I completed my work to-do list, I exercised,…
When you first get a puppy and you’ve owned it for a couple of days, your prevailing thought might be "what have I done?" Before you got her you watched just about every dog training video on YouTube, you read endless articles about what to feed her and how much…
Do you ever get a feeling of emptiness after spending hours binge-watching a TV show? I do, it can feel like eating junk food - enjoyable at the time but with no lasting benefit or satisfaction. Binge-watching is what Robert Greene would call "dead time": While people wait for the…
From an early age, largely thanks to advertising, we’re told it’s normal to be on a satisfaction treadmill. We feel dissatisfied when we develop desires that are unfulfilled. We strive to fulfil these desires in the hope of satisfaction. Before long, the fulfilled desire becomes the new normal and is…
Simon Drew is an alignment coach, a musician, and a trail runner, but if you have an interest in Stoicism you'll know him best as the host of the excellent Practical Stoic podcast. You can find Simon at https://www.simonjedrew.com/ and The Practical Stoic at https://practicalstoicpodcast.podbean.com/ It was great to be…
In the world of computer science, “If–then–else” is a conditional statement in a programming language that performs different actions depending on whether a boolean condition evaluates to true or false. In pseudo-code form, an If–then–else statement looks like this: If (boolean condition) Then (consequent)Else (alternative)End If In the non-computer world, when we…
It’s Friday and you’re out browsing the local stores. You see something you want to buy but don’t have the money for right now. A yellow pair of sneakers. They’re unique, perfect, you. They’ve been on the market for a while but you just became aware of them. You resolve…